Vivaldi browser incompatible with chrome?
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I often get messages that Vivaldi browser is incompatible with chrome, like this one:
Meet doesn't work on your browser
To join the video meeting
Install the current version of Google ChromeHow can I avoid that?
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You should contact the site or app owner and inform him you are using Vivaldi so they can fix it. It's a problem in their code when they try to sniff the browser version. If it works with Chrome it has to be work with Vivaldi.
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Bedore i added user agent switcher, and choose the other user agents, but none did work.
@terere said in Vivaldi browser incompatible with chrome?:
You should contact the site or app owner and inform him you are using Vivaldi so they can fix it. It's a problem in their code when they try to sniff the browser version. If it works with Chrome it has to be work with Vivaldi.en they try to sniff the browser version. If it works with Chrome it has to be work with Vivaldi.
I think that is unrealistic. Asking hundreds or thousands of websites to adapt their code while it does work in chrome (and all other popular browsers like edge, and firefox, and safari).
By the way the website I mentioned is from google, what are the chances that google will adapt to Vivaldi incompatibilities?
Vivaldi, should be 100% compatible with chrome, as it is based on chromium.
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@peefy said in Vivaldi browser incompatible with chrome?:
Vivaldi, should be 100% compatible with chrome, as it is based on chromium.
You have not understood the problem, Vivaldi identifies itself with a User Agent string identical to the one Chrome has, but there's added at the end of the string also "Vivaldi"+current version. When sites detect the browser by reading the User Agent string, and they're doing a bad job at it, when the string is containing "Vivaldi" they don't know what to do because it's either not known to them, or proactively blocking it intentionally.
Change the User Agent string to the one from Chrome (as in just strip out the end part containing "Vivaldi"+version) as already suggested by @Gwen-Dragon and there is an high probability the site now says "Oh it's Chrome, let's work correctly" -
@peefy The websites (including the Google one) DO work in Vivaldi. Bad browser-sniffing causes some sites to send Vivaldi broken code. In order for the website to work in Vivalidi, the website must send the SAME code to Vivaldi that it does to Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Firefox, etc.
"Well, then, why not just use Chrome's user agent for Vivaldi?"
Because that would create the false image that Vivaldi has no users and no one ever visits a website using Vivaldi - which, for Vivaldi, would be financial suicide.
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@peefy said in Vivaldi browser incompatible with chrome?:
...Asking hundreds or thousands of websites to adapt their code while it does work in chrome (and all other popular browsers like edge, and firefox, and safari).
By the way the website I mentioned is from google, what are the chances that google will adapt to Vivaldi incompatibilities?
Vivaldi, should be 100% compatible with chrome, as it is based on chromium.
Website coding costs money. Testing one's website for compatibility with the peculiarities of various browser designs costs money. Reworking site code for the constant drumbeat of browser-code changes across a diverse collection of web browsers costs money. Website tech support and complaint-answering cost money. All this exists in a universe of today's "free" website revenue models.
So rather than deal with possible variables between browsers, some websites code and compatibility-test their sites only for one or two of the largest market-share browsers which they may (but not always) list as "approved" browsers for their site. Rather than deal with any potential functionality complaints that might arise with other browsers, they pre-emptively 'sniff' all visiting browser user agent strings and reject any that aren't on their 'approved' or tested list... hence the message you see. This is particularly true if a website is operated by or affiliated with a maker of a particular market-dominating browser.
This problem has existed for years, and is a big part of the reason why it's so difficult for smaller market-share browsers to move up into the "major browser" category... their very smallness becomes a cause for excluding them on certain sites, hence it slows these browsers' adoption by users regardless of the browsers' merits. And if the small-share browsers copy the large-share user agent strings to bypass the sniffing, these browser never really gain market-share recognition in their own right. The only real remedy to this vicious circle is users complaining directly to the offending sites about those sites' browser exclusion policies.
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@ayespy ah okay , I was indeed wondering "Well, then, why not just use Chrome's user agent for Vivaldi?". I understand now. Your answer makes totally sense.
BTW: how gets Vivaldi funded? which companies pay for using Vivaldi?
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@blackbird Yes, I remember reading very similar posts on the Opera forum too (for exactly the same reason).
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@peefy Advertisers make paid agreements with Vivaldi to get their sites included in the default bookmarks. They will not do this if web statistics indicate Vivaldi has no users. Search engines pay Vivaldi on a "per use" basis, paying Vivaldi for searches made using the platform. This is only possible if the browser used in a search is identifiable as Vivaldi.
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@blackbird True! I see that especially many google websites shun the vivaldi browser by displaying an 'incompatibility message'
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@ian-coog @Ayespy @Blackbird and all others
Hi guys,
I think google deliberately blocks vivaldi.
using the user agent switcher (set on 'chrome') and visiting https://meet.google.com/ (and some other google sites) it says "Meet doesn't work on your browser
To join the video meeting
Install the current version of Google Chrome" -
@peefy Same result here.
I changed my ua via the dev options - set network conditions. Then confirmed ua string on browserleaks.com ip page.
It made no difference on meet.google.com.
So, they may have a more elaborate browser checking mechanism. -
@slake
...or it could be that chrome itself has its own proprietary signal -
@ian-coog said in Vivaldi browser incompatible with chrome?:
@peefy said in Vivaldi browser incompatible with chrome?:
Vivaldi, should be 100% compatible with chrome, as it is based on chromium.
You have not understood the problem, Vivaldi identifies itself with a User Agent string identical to the one Chrome has, but there's added at the end of the string also "Vivaldi"+current version. When sites detect the browser by reading the User Agent string, and they're doing a bad job at it, when the string is containing "Vivaldi" they don't know what to do because it's either not known to them, or proactively blocking it intentionally.
Change the User Agent string to the one from Chrome (as in just strip out the end part containing "Vivaldi"+version) as already suggested by @Gwen-Dragon and there is an high probability the site now says "Oh it's Chrome, let's work correctly"Agreed, but Vivaldi could give us an option to masquerade as Chrome instead of asking us to install an add-on ?
Nm, that would be disastrous -
@rojaviv Vivaldi doesn't even ask you to install any extension.
What you should really do is, if you're an user of their site, to write to badly written sites maintainers telling them that Vivaldi is valid and they should fix their user agent sniffing, if not removing it for good, which would be better in any site. A warning should be enough, blocking actively unknown (to them) browsers is totally stupid.
BTW Vivaldi already has a built in User agent changer, in Dev Tools, but that is active only when Dev Tools are used. -
@slake said in Vivaldi browser incompatible with chrome?:
@peefy Same result here.
I changed my ua via the dev options - set network conditions. Then confirmed ua string on browserleaks.com ip page.
It made no difference on meet.google.com.
So, they may have a more elaborate browser checking mechanism.My 2c:
This has nothing to do with Vivaldi. It does not work for Firefox either. They are forcing you to use Chrome. V just forks the Chromium engine. Chrome undergoes a lot of customizations after that. There is only so much V can emulate Chrome on. -
Old school here, no extension. Spoofing via command line. It always works.
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@slake Do it. Much better than installing extensions for this and for that.
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@lamarca Thanks, indeed it worked! Took me awhile, though. The syntax for that switch I had forgotten ;).